If the future is to be built on data, the Columbus Region has a foundation for the future that few communities can match. Around our 11 counties, the construction cranes and the expansive campuses tell only part of the story of the data-center boom. Well beyond the millions of square feet already built, under construction or planned at more than 40 campuses around the region, data centers are transforming their host communities with new opportunities in education, workforce development and community improvement.
In Union County, where Amazon Web Services (AWS) is building two data centers of 1 million square feet each, students at Jonathan Alder High School and Canaan Middle School get to dive into hands-on STEM learning and stretch their creativity at the AWS-sponsored “Think Big Space.” There’s one at each school, designed to inspire new ideas and build tech confidence — and possibly spark future careers — as kids learn about coding, robotics, artificial intelligence and more. AWS has provided more than 40 Think Big Spaces around the world.
At Tolles Career & Technical Center, a vocational school serving seven central Ohio school districts including Jonathan Alder, Hilliard and Dublin, AWS supports instruction in fiber splicing that can earn career certifications for high schoolers and adults alike.
The Tolles program and Think Big Spaces are just two examples of the ways a data center can enhance educational opportunities and, for Union County, they’re only the start of the direct financial benefits to schools and the larger community. It is true that many centers are built on land with property-tax abatements, but those savings to the company apply only to improvements. Real-estate tax revenue from the underlying ground alone, the value of which has increased dramatically amid the data center boom, drives immediate tax benefits to schools. Beyond that upfront windfall, communities often negotiate additional support for schools or municipalities in the form of payment in lieu of taxes (PILT) agreements.
In Union County, the PILT provides for $4 million over the 10-year life of the tax abatement — $400,000 per year divided among the Jonathan Alder district, the Tolles vocational school district and the county, which uses it to maintain roads serving the AWS site. Beyond the direct contributions, AWS’ engagement with other local organizations builds partnerships that help build a stronger community, says Eric Phillips, economic development director for the county and the city of Marysville.
“I would guess Facebook and Google are the same, being highly engaged with their communities,” Phillips said of such partnerships. “I think that’s a big benefit to having these companies.”
The fact of the data-center boom here is undisputed; in the past 18 months alone, industry giants including AWS, Google, Facebook and Microsoft have announced their intent to collectively invest billions across multiple communities.
While New Albany is seen by many as the epicenter of the “Silicon Heartland” by virtue of Intel’s $20 billion investment in semiconductor manufacturing, communities both larger and smaller, closer in and farther out, are attracting data centers.
In Lancaster, Google is operating one data center and building a second, along with an “Employee Hub” — a separate building for employee gatherings and services. Stephanie Bosco, Lancaster’s director of economic development, said Google’s decision to locate there is an important vote of confidence in a community with a history of traditional manufacturing, saying, “Google has provided access to tech jobs that Lancaster previously didn’t have access to.”
Bosco is confident that Google’s success in Lancaster will inspire more large companies to consider the community.
While data centers don’t generate jobs in numbers as large as with some manufacturing facilities, they bring hundreds of construction jobs for two years or more. The 20 to 30 permanent jobs at a typical large-scale data center come with above-average salaries — typically $85,000-100,000, and beyond those, most centers indirectly support 75 to 80 good-paying jobs for the contractors and suppliers handling the near-constant maintenance and replacement of equipment.
And in some cases, the relatively low number of jobs and consequently light traffic burden can be a benefit, making a data center an ideal use for a site where land and utilities are available, but more traffic would be a problem. Similarly, this makes data centers a good fit for sites that are large but oddly shaped, with limited ingress and egress.
With the growth of artificial intelligence, exponentially increasing demand for data storage is unlikely to slow any time soon. Communities in the Columbus Region have learned a lot over the past decade and a half about how to attract data centers with win-win deals that benefit residents, employees, schools and local governments as well as the companies. That advantage is likely to yield rich returns for decades to come.
